


A Period of Talks and Gardening

by emjam



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Cosette is adamant about Valjean having friends, Gardening, Gen, Minor Character Death, friends are made, just a touch of angst, mabeuf is also in on this friendship, marius is mentioned in passing, plant pals, valjean and georges are pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 03:58:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11683551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emjam/pseuds/emjam
Summary: "This small exchange was how Valjean came to acquire two friends at once, where he once was too isolated to have any at all."[prompt: take two characters who never meet in canon and imagine how they *could* have met]





	A Period of Talks and Gardening

**Author's Note:**

> whenever I write brick les mis my writing style does weird stuff. idk
> 
> anyways, I was on a fanfic prompt blog and found one that said "take two characters who never meet in canon and imagine how they *could* have met". I thought of Valjean and Georges Pontmercy pretty quick, and tried to fit something together lol. It was fun to see what that would be like!

Valjean did not expect to see a man seemingly hiding behind a pillar in Saint-Sulpice, rigid like a fugitive in danger, avoiding detection. Valjean had meant to leave after performing the process of donating to Saint-Sulpice’s welfare, but this gave him pause. The man was either dangerous or in distress, and both were equal priorities in his eyes.

Tanned skin contrasted the man’s hair, so grey that it was almost white. He looked upon someone in the crowd at mass with extreme dedication. A drying tear rested on his face, which was marked by a long scar reaching from his forehead to the bottom of his right cheek.

Valjean managed to inquire about him to a priest, not knowing that this priest had already befriended the man, after being made aware of him by his brother, the churchwarden. The priest related the man’s tale to Valjean, how son and father were not allowed to know each other, so the father came here in secret to see him. The son, and the family at fault for the separation, did not know of Pontmercy’s infrequent visits.

This small exchange was how Valjean came to acquire two friends at once, where he once was too isolated to have any at all.

* * *

Pontmercy dedicated the love to his garden that he was unable to devote to his son, which showed in the gentle care he provided to the small but thriving patches of tulips and roses. This was what occupied him during a considerable chunk of Valjean’s visits. He was unsociable, not out of disrespect but out of discomfort, and so he was not mean but simply not outgoing. Valjean was similarly antisocial out of what he felt was plain necessity in order to stay away from the law's scrutiny, so it took two outside forces to put these men in the same room in a social context.

Those two forces were Pontmercy’s closest friends and Valjean’s own daughter.

The priest and his brother Mabeuf had invited Valjean along to a visit to Pontmercy’s home, as this was how they managed to become friends with Pontmercy in the first place: by visiting. Pontmercy’s social habits would allow nothing else to work. Before Mabeuf and his brother had appeared at his doorstep, they had never heard the man talk, not during mass or any other time. He would only stand like a statue in the shadows, suffering clear in his eyes, and depart before mass was even over, to avoid being caught by his son’s aunt.

This invitation was the catalyst, but the true driving force in the matter was Cosette. He was unfortunate enough to bring up the invitation in passing during dinner, already prepared to shrink away from social situations at this time in his life, as he was so used to doing. Cosette knew this, and did not appreciate it in this instance, as her father had no friends to speak of and was surely dying for some socialization besides her.

“Papa, you should go! It would be rude to turn down an invitation, would it not?”

“Yes, but, what about you? I’m not sure whether or not it is a good idea to leave you alone here.” This part of the Rue de l’Ouest was scarcely populated, and he knew this and chose it for that reason, but it was at least true that nothing has felt as safe as the convent since they left it. There were no actual walls up beyond the three-story house they lived in.

“I won’t be the only one here, papa! If you have forgotten, there are the tenants below us, not to mention the porter. Besides, you won’t be going overnight, will you? I can handle myself for a few hours.” The adolescent girl sounded so sure of herself that his own will was starting to erode.

He sighed. He could do nothing but give in under Cosette’s insistent gaze.

“Yes, I suppose something new will do me some good.”

“I agree,” Cosette said happily, and returned to her dish, just like that. “When is this visit taking place?”

* * *

The next day, Valjean resisted the temptation to follow his normal schedule, and instead followed Mabeuf’s directions to Pontmercy’s home (after obsessively making sure Cosette was secure at the house). Despite this detour from his typical day, he could not resist giving some coins to a few of the poor he encountered on the way.

The quaint little home that sat at Pontmercy’s address was pushed up against a small garden with even smaller plots that somehow boasted magnificent flowers. Mabeuf and the priest were approaching the worn front door, apparently just about to enter, when Mabeuf spotted Valjean, who was standing some ways off with his nondescript coat and observant eyes.

“Monsieur! I am glad you could make it,” Mabeuf called to him. And with that, Valjean found himself inducted into this group of men similar in age but varied in origin.

Once inside, he also found that Pontmercy was not as reserved as his Saint-Sulpice visits might suggest; when alone, he was closed off, but when in friendly company he opened like a blooming flower. Valjean was a new presence in his home, but he was also quiet and respectful, which made him easy for Pontmercy to welcome into their humble meetings.

Valjean introduced himself as Ultime Fauchelevent, and after that they quickly became well-acquainted. There was no awkwardness, as they already felt a kinship with each other on account of their age and the church that brought them together. The priest only joined them every few months after that, being a less frequent visitor in general, leaving Mabeuf, Pontmercy, and Valjean to befriend each other. After some visits, the three men quickly realized that they had a shared interest in gardening, and focused their growing conversation on that. Pontmercy enjoyed dedicating his time to rare breeds of flower and shrub, somehow cultivating them perfectly in his yard. Mabeuf put the same amount of energy and vigor towards fruits, and could always hold a passionate discussion about botany completely by his lonesome. Valjean could not discuss plants in scientific terms, but held a wealth of natural knowledge within him gained from years of occupying the countryside as a peasant and tree pruner. The knowledge of the land could never leave him even in the city, it was ingrained so deeply, and he found joy in sharing what he knew with these men (and also learning a great deal from them) at a time when the only person he would otherwise socialize with would be his daughter.

* * *

“Do you have children, Fauchelevent?” Pontmercy asked him one day, dirt-covered hands at work in his garden, the sun warming the earth.

Valjean, wanting to be delicate about Pontmercy’s separation from his son, took a moment to respond, carefully lifting the seedling to its new hole in the dirt. The small enclosure of the garden was not a problem to the two, who did not need to take up much space, or need much room to work in silent tandem. “Yes, I have a daughter. Her name is Cosette.” After a moment’s consideration, he said, “She likes to garden as well, though does not know much, and is getting curious about you and Mabeuf. Perhaps I can bring her with me one of these days to say hello.”

Pontmercy smiled. There was a hint of sadness in his eyes when he faintly replied, “I would quite like that.”

* * *

Cosette did not end up doing much gardening, but enjoyed sitting with them and listening to their quiet conversations which they held indoors, interjecting at appropriate times in ways that made all four of them laugh. She became a welcome and expected guest in the home, accompanying Valjean on his visits more often than not. When they gardened, she crouched alongside them and watched, not afraid to dirty her dress with the manner in which she was sitting. Mabeuf once commented that becoming a lady would soon leave no room for such things, but there was a twinkle in his eye, and they both laughed. It was not uncommon to see her chestnut curls and his own white tufts bent over one of his prized books that he had brought over.

Pontmercy absolutely adored her, in such a way that Valjean would think Pontmercy was replacing his lost son with Cosette, if he weren’t already certain that Marius held a permanent place in his father’s heart. Regardless, the two children were around the same age give or take a few years, and it seemed that Cosette filled a void in Pontmercy’s life. He was happier when the little home’s plain walls were brightened by the laughter and antics of a child, even when his heartfelt letters to his own child were only answered by emotionless, cookie-cutter letters that did not react to the organic material of his own. Cosette managed to inspire joy despite being a reminder of that non-relationship.

Things went on like this for a couple of years, Valjean dividing his time between this pastime and his few others, maintaining the first consistent non-familial relationship he had ever really formed in his life. Only one particularly notable thing happened over that course of time: the notes from Marius stopped coming altogether, which Pontmercy was not all that surprised by.

What was surprising was when, at the end of this period of talks and gardening, Valjean stopped receiving invitations from either Mabeuf or Pontmercy. Thinking something may have come up, he waited until a month had gone by, became concerned, and sought out the little house with the diligently-kept garden.

There was no one inside.

A look in the yard yielded only dried-up remains of tulips and roses, and the stubborn shrubs.

Knowing what this meant, but needing confirmation, he went to Saint-Sulpice, and found Mabeuf’s brother there. The news came from him.

“Oh, haven’t you heard? The poor man fell ill some weeks ago, and died from a deadly fever just last week. I can tell you where he is buried, if you would like.”

Valjean nodded, shaken. Death was not foreign to him, but he had never been close enough for another man’s passing to affect him in such a personal way.

He learned that Mabeuf knew, but had not written to inform Valjean due to his grief. He also learned that Marius arrived to see his father, but came too late, and the unfairness of that struck at his heart more than the death even did; the man was old and was going to pass eventually, he could admit that, but he never even had the opportunity to share one moment with his son.

The third floor of the Rue de l’Ouest was silent when he entered in the evening, and quietly informed Cosette of the news. She did not weep, but was still visibly saddened, having made a friend of Pontmercy. They plucked flowers from their allotted garden space and traveled to Pontmercy’s grave. There were no flowers on it, but Valjean could not summon anger at the boy that never knew his father, only sadness. The flowers were placed delicately upon the fresh dirt.

Father and daughter stood in respectful silence, the darkening sky and the whispering wind their only company.

Outside a few letters that ceased after Mabeuf's brother passed, Valjean never heard from Mabeuf again.

He could not say the same about the Pontmercy name.

**Author's Note:**

> I vaguely tried to keep with the timeline of the book but if something's wrong, I'm not surprised, lol. I wrote this all on a 3 hr wave of motivation that will probably never come again, so I did reference the book heavily for details but not enough to be perfect. For example, I have no idea how far away georges' home is from valjean's place and it's probably far, but I'm just pretending georges lives reasonably close lmfao (even though he doesn't even live in paris shhhh).
> 
> I also bent the length of georges illness for writing reasons.


End file.
